More reductions at San Diego Union Tribune
Posted by Evan Fell on December 5, 2007 at 4:32 PM
The San Diego Union Tribune is reducing its staff once again, just a year after buying out 19 senior newsroom employees.
The paper’s newsroom currently has about 360 staffers. The reduction this time will cut around 43 employees, or 12% of the newsrooms staff. Around 40 employees from other departments are also being targeted.
A memo sent to newsroom staff says that the paper is looking to cut nine metro reporters, three columnists, three critics, two photographers, and twelve editors or supervisors. The paper will first use a voluntary buyouts approach before it is forced to make layoffs.
This change follows a severe drop in the print circulation of the paper. Since 2004, the paper has lost 19% of Sunday subscribers, even after a marketing attempt that offered two Sunday papers for the price of one.
The paper has shown its strategy for the future by making a number of particular staffers not eligible for the buyouts. The environment and politics reporters, breaking news team, computer-assisted reporting specialists, sports columnists, copy editors and editorial cartoonist cannot take the buyout. Nor can employees of its Internet site, SignOnSanDiego.com.
The job cuts at the local paper are following the trend among today’s papers, which is reducing quality to try to improve their bottom line, a very risky approach, according to Tim Wulfemeyer, a journalism and media studies professor at San Diego State University.
"If it continues to damage the quality of the product, it may end up in worse shape," Wulfemeyer said. "When it all comes down to it, quality, credibility, believability and image is about 90 percent of what journalism has to sell to the public. When that starts to erode, people start to turn to other sources for their information."
Source : voiceofSanDiego.org through Ifra Executive News Service
A memo sent to newsroom staff says that the paper is looking to cut nine metro reporters, three columnists, three critics, two photographers, and twelve editors or supervisors. The paper will first use a voluntary buyouts approach before it is forced to make layoffs.
This change follows a severe drop in the print circulation of the paper. Since 2004, the paper has lost 19% of Sunday subscribers, even after a marketing attempt that offered two Sunday papers for the price of one.
The paper has shown its strategy for the future by making a number of particular staffers not eligible for the buyouts. The environment and politics reporters, breaking news team, computer-assisted reporting specialists, sports columnists, copy editors and editorial cartoonist cannot take the buyout. Nor can employees of its Internet site, SignOnSanDiego.com.
The job cuts at the local paper are following the trend among today’s papers, which is reducing quality to try to improve their bottom line, a very risky approach, according to Tim Wulfemeyer, a journalism and media studies professor at San Diego State University.
"If it continues to damage the quality of the product, it may end up in worse shape," Wulfemeyer said. "When it all comes down to it, quality, credibility, believability and image is about 90 percent of what journalism has to sell to the public. When that starts to erode, people start to turn to other sources for their information."
Source : voiceofSanDiego.org through Ifra Executive News Service
0 TrackBacks
Listed below are links to blogs that reference this entry: More reductions at San Diego Union Tribune.
TrackBack URL for this entry: http://www.editorsweblog.org/mt/mt-tb.cgi/5598
Leave a comment